Help me create an optimal development setup

[sk3pt1c]

Hello,

I'm getting a new 15" Retina Macbook Pro soon and am looking to get a setup going that's clean and very streamlined / organized.

Thing is, I have several options in mind but I'm not sure how to combine them so that I have as little clutter as possible.

I will get a repo up on github so I can have backups of all my code and help with issues left and right as much as I can to get involved and learn stuff.

Currently I am using Dreamweaver but there isn't much support for newer stuff like Sass etc and the code hinting and other features leave a lot to be desired.

I've found CodeKit that compiles Sass well and autorefreshes the browser when you save your files.

At the same time I'm considering Ghostlab that helps out with testing on multiple browsers/devices simultaneously.

Plus there are tons of other apps out there I'm not aware of so please provide recommendations.

Question is, will CodeKit and Ghostlab work well with each other? Is there redundancy / overlap in features that I could do without?

Is CodeKit an alternative to Dreamweaver or is it a niche thing?

Will these two work with auto-uploads of versions to Github?

I am also considering Parallels so I can test on IE, thoughts?

Point is I want to start freelancing again - which I haven't for some time because I've been employed but want to get into again because I feel like I'm behind on a lot of things and I need to save some extra cash - and would like to have my Mac super clean and streamlined so I can work well and fast.

Feel free to share your setup so I can get some ideas / inspiration.

Thanks a lot!

PS. Pics of desks are greatly welcome, will post mine once I get the Mac at the end of the month

 

[dan1eln1el5en]

Not that I am a pro developer (anymore) but I would suggest you give Xcode a try, it supports git and other, local or remote.

it supports code coloring and helpers for HTML, CSS etc.
and it's free.

I use Xcode for Phonegap (HTML5) based apps and Coda for normal websites (built-in FTP)

Dreamweaver I use on Windows, and it's probably the best on that platform, but on OS X it have a lot of competition from much better development tools.

also Coda do support Git and other by using plugins.
(I really like Coda )

 

[sk3pt1c]

Not that I am a pro developer (anymore) but I would suggest you give Xcode a try, it supports git and other, local or remote.

it supports code coloring and helpers for HTML, CSS etc.
and it's free.

I use Xcode for Phonegap (HTML5) based apps and Coda for normal websites (built-in FTP)

Dreamweaver I use on Windows, and it's probably the best on that platform, but on OS X it have a lot of competition from much better development tools.

also Coda do support Git and other by using plugins.
(I really like Coda )

Coda did look pretty enticing, i must agree with you!

Xcode huh? Never considered it like that, hm...

Thanks!

 

[ohbrilliance]

Here's how I've setup my dev environment on my new rMBP. I am more of a back-end developer, so while I can code the JS and CSS that's needed, I do so by hand rather than using tools better suited to a front-end developer.

I code my large PHP projects in Netbeans. I find it powerful and straightforward to work with.
My code is stored in my own subversion repository on my Bluehost account. Netbeans handles the commits and updates. Bluehost provides excellent support for revision control systems. I use subversion because it's what I'm used to.
I have Redmine setup on my Bluehost account, for managing my ongoing tasks. It ties in nicely to the subversion repositories, so that if for example I commit changes in Netbeans with a message "fixes #123", then ticket #123 will be marked as closed in Redmine, and a link added to the ticket, from which line-by-line updates to the source code can be viewed. (Organisation is not my forte, so I'm really quite rapt about how well this all works).

Smaller, adhoc development is handled in Textmate, which is now free.
S/FTP is handled by Transmit, which is fantastic software. It's made by Panic, the company behind Coda. A fair amount of the functionality of Transmit is found in Coda. I use XCode for iOS development.

I hope that gives you some ideas for different approaches.

 

[websterba]

I'm a firm believer in Sublime Text 2/3. It has grown on me so much over the last year and there are tons of tutorials on it now. I recommend getting the trial and checking it out. Coda seemed to be too much like a toy for me and I couldn't set up the environment the way I wanted to.

 

[960design]

I don't use GitHub, I have installed Git on my mac. That keeps my code from the public domain, requirement of my job. But I whole heartedly recommend Git!

I do most of my development on a 15" MacBook Pro, i7, 16G of Ram...

I have 6 desktops(workspaces), that way I can quickly 3-finger swipe left and right between apps.

D1 = Chrome
D2 = Coda2
D3 = Safari / Mamp ( behind Safari )
D4 = Photoshop CS6E
D5 = Open so that I can start or stop applications, I may want or need ( CyberDuck / FireFox / ect )
D6 = Mail, Chat, Spotify/Pandora/iTunesRadio

I use a WD iCloud for automated TimeMachine backups as well.

I have a 15" Acer TimeLine that I use for IE tweaks. iPadAir, Nexus10(running UbuntuTouch), iPhone 4S, iPhone5S for response design.

I think that is my full stack.

Purists will ask why I use MAMP over the Mac's embedded server... only because it's simple and easy to configure.

I build / test locally. Publish to a remote dev server via Coda2 for the client to watch their site get built. I then deploy to a staging server to ensure everything works like I want, before I finally deploy to live server.

 

[Holoshed]

I will admit that while I am still trying to find the current editor for code that I like "now," I used to use Coda 1 and just do not want to pay the upgrade price right now and always forget I own a license for PhpStorm that I should be using. Actually I may get some of their their other apps since I am doing more front end work too since WebStorm looks pretty sleek.

I can tell you that I do not trust public repos nor do I want something hosted on my own machine so I have a VPS I installed gitolite and use gitweb under a protected environment for code backing up. On a side note I am going to learn the nuances of Capistrano for deployments so I can setup test environments without needing to do a bunch of "git pulls" everywhere I want to test it. That combined with owncloud for backups just for the sake of backups gives me what I need in terms of failure protection.

I also love MySQLWorkbench for managing/setup of the databases I need so if you do any back end work I would highly suggest something like that as it is free and basically right from the mysql website.

So yeah hopefully that did not pull you too far away from what you are looking for as an answer but most of my work is back end work right now and my fiance does photoshop work so I defer to her if I need something a little more "picture perfect" if you get what I mean.

 

[simon48]

I'm a big fan of Sublime Text and Tower (it's a GUI for Git). I instantly fell in love with Tower and I recommend anyone to try it out.